My tribe and I just got back from a week long vacation to Disney World. We had a great time. Before we left, I knew I would be taking lots of pictures and video. I have an 8Gb memory card in my camera but feared it wouldn’t be enough. I picked up an additional 16Gb card to supplement. I’m glad I did as the 8Gb card was fully by the end of the third day.

Being a parent that grew up in the 80’s, I have a rich cinematic history to impart to the Ace and the Deuce. With DVDs, Blu-Ray, Netflix, iTunes and the like, there’s no shortage of venues by which to get the movies. The real problem is how the movies are rated. Movies that were rated R back then might only get a PG or PG-13 now-a-days. Similarly, if someone uttered a G*dd^mn or @ss, it was a big deal. Today, we hear that kind of language on public television.

How is a parent to know what is actually okay for their kids? The first (and best) option would be to pre-screen the movie so you know what’s in there. Another option though, comes from our friends at IMDB.

When you find the movie you’re interested in, scroll down past the cast list. There, you’ll see a link to a parent’s guide.

Clicking there will take you to a page where a variety of categories are explained. Language, Sex, Violence, all the things parents might be interested in.

I may have created a monster. It started off innocently enough. I wanted to teach my boy (who will be known as “The Ace”) a little about programming. He’s a tremendously creative kid. I thought he might get some enjoyment out of creating something like a website.

One of the great things about programming is the instant gratification you get. You write a little code and then get to try it out. That’s right up his alley.

So in the spirit of teaching him how to program, I picked up Alice. You can download it for free at http://www.alice.org. It’s a really wonderful system designed to teach object oriented programming to kids.

Well, the Ace used it for a bit and enjoyed it but it wasn’t what he wanted to do. He wanted to make a website. On a side note, his brother (The Deuce) LOVED playing with Alice. He had a lot of fun putting animals out and then controlling them with the mouse. Back to the Ace….

So to make a website, I first tried to have him use Fireworks from Adobe. That was going okay, but again, it’s not what he wanted. Plus, when he was using Fireworks, he was on MY computer! We can’t have that!! So instead, he is now on his own computer. It’s a Windows box and I have Visual Studio installed there.

Last night, we created an ASP.Net website. I taught him just enough Visual Basic so that he can click a button and get sent to another page. I also taught him how to write an IF/THEN block to check a password. It was 10:00 at night and he was still going strong. We had to pull him (literally crying) away to go to bed. When I woke him up this morning, his first words to me were “Can we work on my website after school?” Oh boy…